Photograph by Ingrid Goh. Kirsten Cooney & Leslie Roberts.
What do you get when you put beer, organ donors, and transplant surgeons in the same room? A night of rocking fun! The 5th International Pub Night was held at Toronto’s historic St. Lawrence Hall. This fundraiser was in support of the University Health Network’s Transplant Program and the Jürgen Mummenhoff Memorial Fund in Transplantation.
Global Toronto New Anchor, Leslie Roberts, was the event’s master of ceremonies. As this was his first year hosting this event, he noted that this was “not your typical sit down rubber chicken event.” The event featured 11 imported and 6 local beers, 2 ciders, and 4 wines with food catered by Daniel et Daniel. This year’s event also featured a new oyster bar sponsored by De La Mer.
Leslie shared how organ transplantation had personally touched his family prior to introducing special guest speakers to share stories of how organ donation had touched their lives.
The first speaker was Manon Campbell, mother of Hélène Campbell (the double lung transplant recipient known for dancing with Ellen Degeneres). She shared the story of how her hummingbird-like daughter suddenly lost the majority of her lung function and found herself hooked up to an oxygen tank and waiting on the transplant list for new lungs. Manon recounted how Hélène had lost so much energy that when she was not in the public eye and the cameras were turned off, she spent most of her time resting in bed. There were points where Helene told her mother that she felt like she was drowning because her lungs were not functioning properly.
As most of us know, Hélène received her lung transplant and was able to dance with Ellen on the Ellen Degeneres show. What most of us don’t know is that the lungs that Hélène received were bigger than her chest cavity. The advanced research and knowledge of University Health Network’s lung transplant team enabled them to refit the desperately needed lungs. Manon happily reported that Hélène has regained her independence and is now training for a 5K race.
Speaker Greg Compton shared about his experience in the paired kidney exchange program (a program where you give a kidney to another person at another transplant centre and your partner receives a kidney from another donor). He participated in this program so that his partner, Meredee McKee could receive a kidney. He said that “there are not many opportunities in life to be a hero” and this was “one of the greatest things that I have done” and felt like a hero. When he was flown to British Columbia, he recalled how his surgeon was so focused on his job that he did not even smerk at any of his nervous jokes. When the organ donation was complete, the surgeon handed him an autographed picture of his kidney. Greg told him that he was sad to see the picture as he “was really attached to that kidney.” The surgeon replied, “Yes you were.”
Ending the shared experiences was 21 year old Erica Tomlinson who spoke about her experience as a live liver donor. She donated 70% of her liver to her neighbour Renee Ly (the liver grows back so she has 100% of it today.) “I’m going to give you a piece of awesomeness,” Erica said when she told her neighbour what she had decided to do.
There was a raffle for a 50-inch Samsung television and platinum seats to a 2014-2015 Maple Leafs game, donated by Leon’s, as well as a silent auction of over 30 different items. Erica and her mother were the lucky winners of Leafs tickets and jumped around with glee when their raffle ticket winning number was called.
Since its inception, this fundraiser has raised over $90,000 for the University Health Network’s Organ Transplant program. This transplant program is the largest program in Canada and is one of the world’s leading transplant clinical and research programs, developing life-changing advances in transplantation.
Photograph by Ingrid Goh. The Marginal Donors.
The evening featured The Marginal Donors, a group which included three of University Health Network’s transplant surgeons: Dr. Heather Ross, Dr. Mark Cattral and Dr. Paul Greig. Once the dance floor opened, guests rocked the night away to covers of famous songs by bands like Van Morrison, Bob Marley, and U2.
Photograph by Ingrid Goh. Organ donation awareness ribbons.
